Toubacouta Days 2&3: Sh-sh-shake that ass girl

We were all reminded that this field trip was in fact a school trip on the second day when we visited both the Centre du Peche et Centre de l’ANCAR, an agricultural NGO, and heard from speakers. While my French comprehension has gotten quite good by know, it is still very hard to catch everything when (1) you only got 6 hours of sleep the night before and (2) the speakers are using jargon you probably don’t know in English. In the end I was certain of two things: there are almost no fish left in the area and most people in the area can barely grow enough food for sustenance. Not a very hopeful situation. In the afternoon we visited a center for the conservation of mangroves, which was one of the high points of the trip. The park was working with the local population to help create a sanctuary for over 80 species of fish and protect the mangroves. It takes a 30 minute boat ride to get to the sanctuary. We were divided into two boats and the ride consisted of lots and lots of singing and chanting. The Senegalese students led us in some traditional songs and it turned into a contest between the two boats to see who could sing the loudest.
That night after dinner we went into the village of Toubacouta and a local Mandinka dance troop put on a show for us. It was amazing. I wish I had been able to get better pictures of video but the light was in the wrong spot. After the troop finished their show (which included a man dancing on stilts and a fire eater) the villagers all took turns dancing in the middle of the center. We even got called up one at a time to dance in front of everyone. And everyone who has ever seen me dance can just imagine that. Everyone in the village knew the traditional Senegalese dance :the mbalakh. The mbalakh consists of some rather complex combination of moving your legs and hips in circles and the end result is shaking your ass really really fast. One of the girls on the program in originally from Liberia and teaches African dance in Minnesota. She tried to teach us but it’s really hard.
The next day we visited two smaller villages. In the first we were able to speak with a women’s microfinance group. These women were almost completely dependent upon the loans they were receiving. Although the loans are intended to be use by the women to invest in small businesses or agriculture with the ultimate goal being financial independence, the women almost completely use the loans for day to day survival. One of the most amazing things we heard was that since the group was started six years ago no one has ever defaulted on a loan. Honor is so important that the women will bind together and cover for each other if they cannot pay. The second village was even smaller and we had a question and answer session with them about their life. They have essentially no access to health care at all and most kids stop attending school at the age of 8 because they must work to help support their family and school is so far away. The village was made up of women, children and old men because all the young men are off in a city or on the coast trying to find work elsewhere during the dry season. The village is also predominantly polygamous. We visited several housing compound and there were at least two wives with each house. At the end of our visits to both villages we learned that we were the first people outside of their villages (including foreigners, government officials, etc) who had visited them and asked them about their problems. In both instances we were also asked what we were going to do for them and it was hard to tell them that we were only students and that we couldn’t make any changes. Yet.
Our last stop of the day was a visit to the Dara of a local ecole corranique. In Senegal there are two types of schools: Formal French schools, which cost money and corranic schools which are free. The corranic schools are free because most of the supplies are provided by influential Muslims in Saudi Arabia. The biggest difference between the two types of school other than the inclusion of the Koran and Arabic in the curriculum is that a student does not receive a diploma after the completion of corranic school. The Dara gave us all a book about Muhammed and an English translation of the Koran in English. He also had us all read a passage condemning those who do not embrace Islam to a fiery hell. Charming. Nobody knew what to say so we just sat there awkwardly until we could leave.
That night we went to make-shift night club in the village. Apparently once a week, a group of younger people in the village will rent out an empty space and stay up all night dancing. We went with the Senegalese students and stayed out until 2:30 in the morning dancing. I learned some Senegalese dance moves and we deemed the night successful because we were able to prevent anyone from being cornered by a guy proposing marriage (apparently it has happened in the past).